


Deer Meat

by grayimperia



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background/implied Dedue/Dimitri for a second or two, Character Study, Crimson Flower, F/F, Introspection, Post Timeskip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayimperia/pseuds/grayimperia
Summary: “Hello, Claude,” Edelgard said to the ghost. “Come to haunt me?”“I go where I’m needed.”“I certainly hope you can entertain yourself because I do not have the time to play games with you.”Claude smirked. “Fine, fine. No need to lose your head, Princess.”-Edelgard kills Claude, and he lingers.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Claude von Riegan, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 13
Kudos: 297





	Deer Meat

**Author's Note:**

> Crimson Flower, post time skip.

Claude asked for her to be a good emperor and do for all of Fodlan what he couldn’t. He bowed his head, and Edelgard chopped it off. 

Claude knew this outcome was possible. His death would be the final nail in the coffin for the members of the Alliance still clinging to their thinning support of the Kingdom. Remove the head, and the body will fall. 

She gave her victory speech, made preparations to secure Derdriu with minimal damage to the city, and continued on her towards Rhea. 

Derdriu was a beautiful city, too. Being so close to the sea made the hair on the back of Edelgard’s neck stand up, and she made a vow to murder Claude with each wave the rocked the boats she had to traverse to reach him. But from a distance, the canals and lapping waves of the ocean had a charm to them. They were soothing, calm, and romantic even.

Byleth was always something of a water nymph. She had spent hours of their academy days at the pond, fishing rod in hand. Sometimes she’d catch fish and other times she’d simply stare out at the still water, her eyes moving to track something Edelgard couldn’t see.

Edelgard always wished she had approached her when she was in her sea swept dazes, and at the fall of Derdriu, she found them standing together, watching the ocean as the last of Nader’s forces retreated over the horizon.

“We’re not going after them,” Byleth said.

“No,” Edelgard replied. “They are not our enemy. Claude dragged them into this war, and I see no reason to entangle them further.”

“Okay,” Byleth said. “I wonder… why Claude fought at all. He wasn’t an enemy.”

“He made himself one. He could have let us pass through to reach the Kingdom, and this battle would not have happened. It may have landed him in trouble with the Alliance lords who support the Kingdom, but that would cease to be a problem once the war reached its end.” Edelgard frowned as the last of the wyverns vanished from sight, blotted out by the light of the setting sun. “It was a foolish decision, and it cost him his head.”

Byleth stayed quiet for a moment, letting the lapping of the waves speak for her. “Was Claude a foolish person?” 

“No,” Edelgard said. “Which is what frustrates me most. He knew better than this, but still insisted.”

“I heard his last words. He seemed to agree with your future.”

“He did, and that is why I am frustrated. But it is no matter. The future awaits us.”

Byleth nodded. “I hope the future is worth this present.”

“It is.” 

They watched the sea. “I feel,” Byleth said, “that I have lost sight of The Beginning. It used to be my guide, but I can’t see or hear it anymore.”

“We cannot make decisions based on the path or labor over regret.”

“Do you feel regret?”

Edelgard tore her eyes off of the sea to look at Byleth. Behind her, just in the corner of Edelgard’s eye, was a yellow blur. “I…” She narrowed her eyes to focus, but the shape only seemed to obscure itself further as she tried to grasp it. “I’d rather look to the future.”

“Okay,” Byleth said. Her tone was plain. Edelgard had given her answer, and Byleth seemed to accept it without judgment. “Then I will as well.”

The matter was settled, and yet the yellow blur lingered. Throughout the day in Derdriu, it waned in and out of focus. Sometimes Edelgard was sure it was a trick of the light or just the result of standing to long in the beating sun. But other times, it’d seem to loom over Hubert’s shoulder or walk alongside Dorothea as she tended to the wounded. It’d sit on the edge of the canal next to Bernadetta and examine whatever sketch she was working on. It was yellow, and there was something red pouring down it when it was particularly clear. 

Edelgard recognized the apparition for what it was before nightfall, and pointedly ignored its presence during the victory banquet. They even invited former Alliance soldiers to join them as a show of unification, but, still, it lingered as Edelgard raised her glass and toasted to the peaceful future ahead of them.

In her chambers, she undid her hair and brushed it a hundred times before she acknowledged the presence reflected behind her in her mirror. He was clear there. Dressed in fine gold and yellow fabric with his neck bloodied and soaking the rest of his chest in red. 

“Hello, Claude,” she said. “Come to haunt me?”

“I go where I’m needed.”

“I must be more exhausted then I thought.”

“Go on, get some beauty sleep. I can entertain myself.”

And he was still there when she turned around to face him. “I certainly hope you can because I do not have the time to play games with you.”

Claude smirked. “Fine, fine—don’t lose your head, Princess.”

Edelgard went to bed, and Claude was there with the morning sun when she woke.

-

Claude followed her. He’d stare out the window and laze on his back like a cat basking in the sun while Edelgard attended to her paperwork. When she’d train, he’d dance around, laughing whenever he got between her and her training dummy and his ghostly form was bisected. 

When they got the report that an invasion force from the church was on the horizon, he whistled. “Ooh, that sounds bad. Though it is a chance to slay a few more dragons, right?”

Edelgard’s mouth twisted into a frown, and she chose to call an emergency war council rather than acknowledge Claude. 

For the most part, he was just there. He’d let her have her conversations with others in peace, and only tried to speak to her when the two were alone. Usually, he wouldn’t even make conversation. He’d just smile at her and wave whenever her eyes lingered on him. 

Edelgard had more important things to worry about than a troublesome ghost, anyway. By the war’s end, she knew a small army would join him in haunting her. There was no need to trouble herself while their numbers were so small. 

On the eve of the invasion, Edelgard brushed her hair, and Claude lounged on her bed. “It’s a bit of a shame,” he said. “I liked Flayn. She was funny. Into fish. Maybe she’s a dragon, but we all have our flaws, don’t you think? When you kill her, chop her head off, too. I barely felt a thing.”

“Are you quite finished?”

“Nah, but that’s the whole ghost thing. Unfinished business, you know?”

“Well, hurry it up and be on your way then.”

Claude hummed. “You know what sucks about being dead? You can’t bathe. I’m going to be covered in blood forever. I mean, juggling my own head is fun, but it loses its appeal fast. Though, I guess that’s not unique to me.”

Edelgard sighed. She didn’t know why she was even bothering to engage him. “Do all the dead bear the wounds that killed them, then?”

“Far as I know, but I fly solo. Also,” he sat up and grinned at her. “You want to know a secret? It’s not just the dead that are covered in blood they can’t get rid of. But you already know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, your blood is on my hands,” Edelgard said. “I am aware.”

“On your hands, in your mind—I’d say its baked into you at this point. I mean, why else would I be here?”

Edelgard scowled as she rose to her feet from her nightstand. “I always hated you, Claude. I really did.”

“Ouch. You’re breaking my heart, Princess.” 

“You always acted so superior. You taunt me for doing what must be done, while you have no concept of how much blood and misery your hands have wrought.”

Claude raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

Edelgard felt her hands clench into fists. “You waver and dither, and people suffer while you do. Do you know how many people there are who die and wallow in misery while you hold your little council meetings? You tell them to wait for change—to be patient—while they’re in the gutters or trapped underground. I may be more direct, but I cannot even count how many people you have tortured and killed by your inaction.”

Claude smiled. “I see. And am I torturing you now, El?”

Edelgard swung her fist and cracked the wooden headboard of her bed into splinters. 

She took a deep breath, and only seemed to realize how much sweat she was drenched in then. Noises of commotion started up in the room next to her, and in seconds, both Hubert and Byleth were rushing through her door.

Hubert scouted the room for intruders, and Byleth placed steadying hands on her shoulders. Edelgard looked at Claude who smirked at her as he wiped at the fresh blood on his chest.

She closed her eyes tight and gripped Byleth’s supportive hands hard enough to bruise. But she didn’t remove them even when Edelgard caused her harm.

-

They defended Garreg Mach, and Byleth chased Flayn and Seteth away with only a few bruises and sprains between them.

“They said they will not be back,” she reported after the battle. “They will go into hiding and we will never see them again.”

Edelgard wiped Aymr’s blade in the grass. Claude was perched on a partially destroyed fence, staring at the sun. “Very well.”

“They are like the man Claude called, right? They were pulled into the war by Rhea, and we don’t need to entangle them any further, right?”

“Using my own logic against me, are you my teacher?”

Byleth tilted her head, but her voice was plain and devoid of any moral evaluation as usual. “Would you have preferred if we killed them?”

Aymr was nearly clean, but with its shape, there were always a few spots that the blood was always cling to and only fleck away from when it was good and dried. “It is fine that they live,” Edelgard said. “It just seems… unfair to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I do,” Claude said.

Edelgard shot him a look, and he smiled back. “They started this battle with us, and left their army to die. We killed soldiers that fought for them. Their men didn’t have the chance to retreat. Why should the ones who instigated the fight get to run and live while those caught up in their wake must die?”

“I see,” Byleth said. Then, “Do you feel that way about yourself, Edelgard?”

Edelgard stared at Aymr glittering in the sun’s setting light. Then Claude’s shoes as he came to stand right before her. “If,” she said. “I could challenge Rhea to a duel and be done with it—risk only our lives—I would. But that is not how war is waged. People are too cowardly for that.”

“I don’t think I’d let you duel Rhea alone, anyway.”

Edelgard raised her head only then. “My teacher?”

“I have come this far by your side,” Byleth said. “I don’t think I could leave now for the world. I wouldn’t want to even if the chance came.”

“Is that…” Edelgard almost didn’t want to ask her question. Both answers would hurt her. “Because you believe in the future we are trying to create or because you believe in me?”

Byleth paused for a moment before pulling at her alien green hair. “I don’t know much about Fodlan, really. Or politics. I think I was dragged into this by power beyond me. I never had a choice, so that’s why I follow you.”

Edelgard felt her heart sink. “I… I am sorry to hear that, my teacher. If you did wish to leave, I promise I would let you. You are not a prisoner.”

“No,” Byleth said. “I’m here because this is my choice. I’ve never been able to choose before this, and walking away with you was the first time I chose. I don’t think I like fate,” she twisted her hair and genuine emotion seemed to flicker across her passive features. “I don’t like war either, but I think I like fate even less.”

“Well,” Edelgard said. “I think we’re here not because of fate, but because we fought tooth and nail against it. This war wasn’t meant to be or decided by the gods. It was all us.”

Claude laughed. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

-

The Silver Maiden fell and then was turned into a crater. 

They spread there message to make it have meaning. It was an act by Rhea—a rallying cry against her—and not a pointless act of destruction.

But Claude had yet to leave and wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace even as she bathed to remove the blood.

“Could be worse,” Claude said, sitting on the edge of her tub. “There could have been Kingdom soldiers still inside, but you got ‘em all.”

Edelgard scowled at him. “We are so far from the Alliance now. Can you not return home, yet?”

“Unfinished business! Not all of us can act with such brutal efficiency.”

“You know as well as I do that Faerghus’s forsaken code of chivalry causes them to fight to the last man. You heard my offer to let them surrender.”

“I did.”

“I do not want them dead,” Edelgard bit back. “I want reconciliation—not decimation. They are the ones who insist upon it.”

“Strong words from someone bathing in the blood of her enemies.”

Edelgard sighed and tilted her head back. She closed her eyes, hoping that that would somehow shut Claude out. “What is even the point of this? You think I am a blood thirsty monster. I understood that from the first moment you decided to haunt me. Haven’t you tired of this, yet?”

She kept her eyes closed, and in the darkness, the lack of a grin in Claude’s voice stood out all the more. “Yeah, I have. I’m exhausted, but I have to keep going. The future won’t make itself, after all.”

Edelgard cracked her eyes open. Claude wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead he was staring at the swirls of dried blood coming loose in the lukewarm water. “No, it won’t.”

“And you’ve come too far now. Rhea can’t rule, and Dimitri’s been too poisoned by her. He’ll just punish the empire if he wins the war. No turning back even if you wanted.”

“I don’t want to,” Edelgard said. “I decided I would walk this path until the end for a long time now.”

“You’re walking just fine. It’s just that the blood sticks to your boots sometimes. Weighs you down more than all that heavy armor. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, yeah? But what doesn’t kill you still hurts like hell.”

Edelgard’s eyes flickered from his stony face to his neck. It was so covered in blood, she couldn’t see the wound that ended his life. 

“Claude,” she said. “I shouldn’t have killed you. I’ve known that for a long time, but saying it aloud doesn’t undo the mistakes I have made. There is no way to go but forward.”

Claude hummed as he stood, walking over to the door and showing her his back. “Hey, El. You want to know a secret?” Edelgard waited as Claude turned, stretching his arms out to his sides and smiling gently. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“I know.”

“Then you know why I’m here, yeah?”

Edelgard splashed her face with water. When she left her bath and dried her face, Claude was gone. But the guilt remained.

-

Dimitri must have lost his mind. Rhea had already turned and left him to die, and his soldiers were turning themselves into demonic beasts in the hopes of doing just a little more damage to Edelgard and her army in the hopeless fight.

The mud kicked up around her, and for the first battle in a long time, she was not drenched in blood but dirt. Byleth didn’t seem to like the conditions much either, and her lips quirked into a frown as she raised her cape as a makeshift umbrella whenever a pause in battle allowed her to. Edelgard let the rain pour over her.

“We should be careful as we approach,” Byleth said, nodding to where Dimitri seemed to have decided his last stand would be. “The surrounding soldiers will probably turn.”

Edelgard knew she was probably right. Noble, chivalrous, Dimitri would send monsters after her, and then he would scream that she was the true monster and he would see her again in the depths of hell.

“That man, Dimitri’s vassal,” she said. “Go after him first. He’s likely to turn. Take him alive if you can and before he can transform.”

Byleth gave her an odd look but she asked no questions. “Alright.”

It was a challenge wrestling the much larger man to the ground, and Dimitri gave a guttural yell as if he was the one being attacked. Byleth was still engaged with Dedue, having barely knocked the Crest stone from his grip before he could throw his life away. Dimitri charged her, and Edelgard stood her ground between them. She heard the sounds of the battle behind her intensifying as Byleth did what she could to stop Dedue from getting around her to strike Edelgard from both sides.

Dimitri had murder in his eyes, and Edelgard felt no anger towards him.

At the battle’s end, she stood over Dimitri, Aymr raised high above her head.

Dimitri’s blonde hair hung in his eyes, soaked with rain and plastered to his face. “Do it,” he said. “Do not let me linger.”

Edelgard did not move. Dimitri bowed his head.

Byleth came to stand beside her. “He is secure,” she whispered. “He was still fighting his guards to reach Dimitri when I left him.”

Edelgard nodded. “Dimitri,” she said to him. “Why are you throwing your life away?”

He snarled snapping his head back up. “I cannot throw away what is wrenched from my grip. You have wanted to trample over me since before this bloody war’s beginning. You killed my family and now you have come to kill me. If my only choice left is to let you finish your atrocities then I ask for you to stop wasting my time.”

One of Byleth’s hand strayed to her sword, and she discreetly reached out to Edelgard’s shoulder, ready to pull her back if Dimitri snapped at her. 

Edelgard lowered her weapon, and placed a hand over Byleth’s. “Dimitri, you have always had a choice. You could haven chosen to let your generals abandon their code and surrender to spare lives. You could have chosen to lay down your weapon when Rhea left you to die. And now you can choose to live and walk away with your vassal.” 

Dimitri’s eyes widen and the fury in his voice finally gave way. “Dedue… lives?”

“Yes, and you can continue to live with him if you choose to.”

Dimitri held out his hands for Byleth to cuff without a second thought. He was led away to Dedue, who finally stopped struggling when he saw his lord. Hubert neared Edelgard to receive his orders about the prisoners’ fate, and Edelgard instructed they should be exiled when the war ended. 

“Some place far away,” she said. “Sreng is too close to the Kingdom, and they are unlikely to survive the winter there without copious supplies. Dagda would require a voyage that I would prefer not to take. So… send them to Almrya.” She glanced across the field to Claude washing the blood off of himself in the rain. “May they find peace there.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I've had kicking around in my head for a while now, and I ended up writing it all in one sitting because of how much I ended up enjoying it. And I hope it's enjoyable to read, too!


End file.
